Poem: Persephone In Fall

Books Original Writing

By Dan Schneider Jun 7, 2007, 21:30 GMT

         Her pelvis rested on the radiator. Outside
of her apartment window, as Wanda watched inside,
the autumn twilight gathered stealthfully,
on the ground, a whirl of leaves harvested
from elsewhere. Wanda noticed.

It seemed as if a malevolence was behind it,
momentarily, battering the column of leaves
against the steely filter of schoolyard fence.
In the city it was rare for nature
to make itself known. This was natural.

As if a living thing, the burl of leaves
retreated from the fence and blew into the alley
by Rosen's BIG Little Store, and seemed to cover
old Grady as he slept next to the green
dumpster, as if a swarm of bees drawn
to the honeyed chin of a man trying to form
a beard- something she had seen once or twice
on a t.v. show. The evening darkened.

The leaves took off, backed out of the alley
and slithered across this near-desolate street
in p.m. Bushwick and into the community pool
swimming with green algae from three weeks of disuse,
where only Wanda watched, or could.

As the leaves seemed to find their end in the water
a sudden ray of light broke over Manhattan
and into the swimming pool, agitating what seemed
to have been an end into a bright beginning.

Waves bobbed and crashed from end-to-end
and rose up- nearly sexual- to form a column
of unrippled being, one with the unliving
water and detritus in light, and the hovering night.

In this moment Wanda was agog. With her brother
still at school and her parents at work, no one
or no thing could have prepared her for this.
The shadows lengthened, and Grady slept,
and the column took unusual shape.

Indrawn about its middle formed a waist, a pelvis,
and lower- the legs of a woman, and upwards-
the breasts, shoulders and face of light;
the dead leaves now the burn of her hair
swaying in the breeze and shaft of light,
mere moments ago unrealized, unknown.

As a second passed, Wanda grew fearful, hid
behind her curtains, instinctively as the leaves
did their whirl, yet ever peering, drawn to the beauty
she deemed all in her head. She knew she would one day
be a writer, an artist, or explorer of things
beyond the pale. Her vision would lead her.

As she peeked, the water-being- with eyes transparent
as tomorrow, caught hold of its voyeur. Its smile
uplifted, from its gaze arced upward,
the courage and the wonder of the child.

Slowly drawing upward, the water-woman became a column
and rose three stories, one with the sun-
light and over the roof of the decaying tenement
(closed since Mr. Millstein, the super, died in May)
to reform herself and head for the flowerboxes, neglected
for months, and nearing death. A second second passed.

Under a younger eye the new being, suddenly seeming beyond
any call of years, whispered, "You are the reason for all of this.",
and poured herself into the boxes, especially the sunflowers.
All that was left on the cool tarpaper roof was a coiffe
of leaves and several wet footprints. Another second passed.

Wanda withdrew into her reality as the minutes gave way
to her family's return, and on things went. The days grew colder,
and Grady occasionally moved, as Wanda spent afternoons
by the window. The pool was soon covered. The rooftop remained.
The flowers lived no longer than they should have, not even
the sunflowers could lift their gaze, and the sun came and went.

Soon, Wanda came to realize her inward boredom as the cause
of her delusion, and resolved to never give in again.

But lightning need only be singular.

An industriousness seized the girl and never let go,
all through the years of work and marriage, motherhood
and reflection; all the influence of an outward thing.

And one spring morning, in her eighty-eighth year,
Wanda- just weeks into retirement- found herself
in the country, walking arm-in-arm with her teenaged grandson
past a cottage and its windowbox, apparently untended
for weeks or months, and drew close to its weeded interior-
a small sunflower alone to its doom- and smiled,
as the flower bent backward in her breath,
and whispered, "You are the reason for all of this.",
and spat as much of herself, as an old woman could,
into its box, then turned to her puzzled grandson
and lifted a smile as they continued their walk.

And, now, the sunflower lifts its gaze to you.--

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